Friday Feature

“It is a law of life that
problems arise when conditions are there for their solution.”

- Walter Sisulu

Walter Ulyate Sisulu was a South African
anti-apartheid activist and a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and
the South African Communist Party (SACP). He was born on 18 May 1912 in Ngcobo
in Transkei (now Eastern Cape) to Alice Mase Sisulu and Albert Victor
Dickenson. He was married to nurse and anti-apartheid activist, Nontsikelelo Albertina Sisulu (nee
Thethiwe), and together they had eight children, three of which where adopted.

In Ngcobo, Sisulu attended the Anglican Mission Institute,
however, after the death of his uncle at the age of fourteen, he left for
Johannesburg to find work. In Johannesburg, Sisulu took up a range of work as a
delivery man for a dairy; in the masonry and carpentry department, then as a
miner of the Rose Deep Mine in Germiston; as a domestic; and as a baker for
Premier Biscuits. In 1940, Sisulu was dismissed at Premier Biscuits because he
not only organised a strike for higher wages, but he also attempted to form a
union.

Sisulu also worked as a paint mixer for Herbert Evans in Johannesburg;
as a packer for a tobacconist; as a part-time teller at the Union Bank of South
Africa, and after 1938 as an advertising salesperson and real estate agent. His
real estate business, Sitha Investments sold property to Black and Indian
people, and prior to the apartheid government shutting its operation, it was
the only Black owned estate agency in South Africa.

In 1940, Sisulu joined the ANC and allied with
the organisation’s principle of African nationalism. It was also around this
this time that he met Albertina Sisulu, who he later married in 1944. In 1943,
as founding member of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), he
attended conferences of the Federation of Democratic Youth in Romania and the
International Union of Students in Poland. He also travelled to the Soviet
Union, China, and the United Kingdom. When he returned to South Africa he
joined the SACP.

In 1949 Sisulu became ANCYL Secretary-General,
where he organised the strategy of active protest, most notably the Defiance
Campaign of 1952. For his role in the Defiance Campaign, he was arrested for a
brief period before being served with the first of his many banning orders
under the Suppression of Communism Act. Ultimately, Sisulu was tried and
sentenced for nine months imprisonment with hard labour and suspended for two
years for his role in the Defiance Campaign. No longer able to attend public
meetings, Sisulu resigned as Secretary-General was forced to work in secret. Sisulu
co-organised The 1955 Congress of People but was unable to participate in the
event. In the aftermath of the Congress of People, 156 anti-apartheid activists
were arrested, with thirty of them tried at the Treason Trial. Released on
bail, Sisulu went underground which resulted in the arrest of Albertina Sisulu under
General Laws Amendment Act of 1963. She became the first woman to be
arrested under the General Laws Amendment Act.

Following the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 Sisulu, Mandela and several others formed Umkonto
we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC. During 1962 and 1963 Sisulu was
arrested six times but released on bail in April 1963 Sisulu went underground,
joining up with the Umkonto we Sizwe, who were secretly located in Rivonia.

In 1964, at the Rivonia Trial, Sisulu was sentenced to life imprisonment
with other anti-apartheid activists. Sisulu served the majority of his sentence
on Robben Island, and served the remaining at Pollsmoor Prison, Cape Town.

In 1989, after twenty-five years imprisonment, Sisulu was released from
Pollsmoor Prison. He was elected Deputy President of the organisation in 1991,
a year after the ANC was unbanned. Sisulu was responsible for restructuring the
ANC in post-apartheid/democratic South Africa.

On the eve of South Africa’s democratic elections, Sisulu retired, and
nine years later on 5 May 2003, following a long period of ill health Sisulu
died.

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